The Vampire & Her Witch

Once she settled into one of the sitting room’s comfy armchairs, it took several minutes for Ashlynn to explain what had happened. She started from her conversation with Jocelynn when they returned to her chambers and ended with the ’lesson’ she’d been taught by the Olive Seed.

While Ashlynn spoke, Isabell made herself busy by the hearth, rebuilding the fire and hanging a kettle of water above the fire before searching the nearby cupboards for tea and earthenware mugs that would be comforting to hold.

The cups she found were far too ornate for her preferences; at a time like this, it was best to hold something in both hands so the warmth of the tea could comfort the body, but she made do with the largest of the fine porcelain cups she could find.

”Here,” Isabell said, pressing a warm, steaming cup of freshly steeped tea into Ashlynn’s hands before taking a seat opposite her younger friend. ”I’m sure Heila would have something more magical to steep for you that would help with... with everything,” she said, unable to find words to describe what her friend had just endured.

”One of these days, I’ll ask her to teach me,” Isabell promised. ”Until then, a belly full of warm tea still does wonders for the heart, even if they’re a little ways apart.”

”Thank you, Isabell,” Ashlynn said, smiling with genuine warmth as she sipped the soothing, slightly minty tea. ”For everything. I feel like I piled everything on you last night and ran. And,” she added, glancing at the bottle of wine on the table. ”It must have been a lot to manage.”

”Yes and no,” Isabell said with a shrug. ”Marcel showed back up partway through the night, and the men he’d placed in the manor as ’kitchen staff’ were a big help in securing the gates after we breached them. No one has been allowed to leave the manor or its grounds since we began the attack last night,” she reassured Ashlynn.

”The hardest part, truthfully, was helping Liam with that ’sapling’ you grew in the middle of the Great Hall,” she complained in mock indignation. ”A living sacred tree is hardly a potted plant, Ashlynn, and finding a wagon we can fill with earth to carry it back to the Vale was almost as hard as getting enough men who were willing to touch it to carry it out of the hall, even with Ignatious and Marcel to lend a hand.”

”But you managed it?” Ashlynn asked, grateful to have something to talk about besides her immediate problem.

”For the most part,” Isabell said with a nod and a self-satisfied smile. ”I drew up plans for the manor’s blacksmith to work on today. Like a barrel, we’ll need to reinforce the wagon with iron straps so it doesn’t burst at the seams when we drive it down the road, and we’ll have to strengthen the axles and wheels too. None of it is hard, but it won’t be ready to leave until tomorrow morning.”

”That’s fine,” Ashlynn said, nodding in approval. ”I don’t want to leave the tree here longer than we have to; it isn’t entirely safe here, and I owe a debt to the Ancient Oak for its help last night,” she said. ”But if we need to spend a day to ensure that the sapling isn’t harmed on the road, then I can accept that,” she said, sipping her tea and turning the cup in her hands as she found her mind coming back to her original trouble again.

”I, I intend to send Jocelynn to the Vale along with the tree when it goes,” Ashlynn said resolutely. ”Ollie can accompany her as her guardian for now. His village might be the best place for her for a little while until I can find a way to mend the damage I’ve done to the seed I prepared for her.”

”Do you really think you can mend the seed?” Isabell asked hesitantly. ”Would it be better to destroy this one and start again?”

As an engineer, Isabell knew all too well the dangers of building on a shoddy foundation. You could try to make corrections, add bracing, or revise the design to be less demanding, but the results were always compromises that resulted in poorer outcomes.

Sometimes, as hard as it was to walk away from everything you’d already invested in time, labor, and materials so that you could start again, fresh. Unless it was an emergency, there were very few excuses for tolerating something flawed when you had the opportunity to do things the right way.

”It’s too late for that,” Ashlynn said, placing a hand over the scar in the center of her chest. ”I chose the Olive for its resilience, regenerative abilities, and near immortality,” Ashlynn explained. ”I was selfish, and I wanted to keep Jocey with me for as many years as I would live with Nyrielle.”

”Now that the seed has developed to this point, destroying it becomes almost impossible,” Ashlynn said with a heavy sigh. ”And as it currently is, it’s a near-immortal existence that wants to see Jocey suffer more than anything else. If I let that kind of entity grow in the world...”

”Then some day, it would become a threat to her,” Isabell realized. ”And who knows how much havoc it would cause in the process.”

”Exactly,” Ashlynn said. ”There’s no going back and starting over, no matter how much I want to. It’s my fault for thinking the seed could help me find a solution to the turmoil in my heart by creating the seed for Jocelynn...”

”At least you learned now,” Isabell said gently, wrapping her arm around her friend’s shoulders and holding her close. ”Better now than when you gave it to her....”

”Mmm,” Ashlynn agreed. ”This way, we have a chance, even if it means that I have to stay away from her for now. I’ll keep trying, as many times as it takes, even if it takes another year or two or ten,” she said, but even as the words slipped past her lips, she felt a twinge that had nothing to do with the Olive Seed’s seething hatred for her sister...

She could only nurture one seed at a time, and right now, the space next to her heart belonged to the Olive Seed, which meant that she wouldn’t be able to bring anyone else into her coven until she found a way to resolve her issues with her sister.

For most witches, that would be fine, but Ashlynn had just resolved herself to expand her coven the way the legendary Mother of Forests had done. After all, while she’d just claimed a great victory, doing so had triggered an entirely new war, one where she would need all the help she could get, and for that, she would have to find a way to bring together a coalition unlike any the world had ever seen.

”I need to get ready to face the barons of the Court,” Ashlynn said, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to set her worries aside. ”We can keep everyone in the manor for a day or two, but we have to come out from behind the walls eventually, and when we do...”

”I hope they’ll make the right decision,” Ashlynn said as she stood. ”Or things will become even more difficult in the days to come...”